ሩህ ሚዲያ – Ruh Media

By: Habtamu Girma, Lecturer, Department of Economics, Jigjiga University, Ethiopia

Note for Readers

Part of this Piece was published on September 9/2017 issue of Addis Fortune NP. It can be accessed online via this link: https://addisfortune.net/columns/to-unravel-meles-thought-processes/

Introduction

Five years on since his untimely death, aged 57, the name Meles Zenawi is still active in Ethiopian political discourse. Ranked as a ‘Great Leader’ posthumously by the supreme power of the land - the House of Peoples Representatives, such a rank was unprecedented by any leader at least in the modern history of Ethiopia that counts back roughly since the Mid-19th Century. The title ‘Great Leader’ marks two things. For one, it is meant to honor one’s outstanding leadership quality. At the overleaf is the immense influence of the man. While the capacity of Meles as a leader has many critics, his influences in his own ways is uncontestable.
Meles has been such an influential figure that he was able to institutionalize his thoughts, conceptions, and even personal behaviors installed to spin the Ethiopian historical, political, legal and economic path.The influence remain intact even after his death, With the thoughts of Meles Zenawi set to rule the country for foreseeable future.
Sophisticated as his conceptions were so for his supporters, the personality of the man is equally cloak for his critics. Some branded the late Prime Minister as selfless, pragmatic, and democrat, there are also people who rather depict the man as eccentric, dogmatic, and undemocratic. With all that featuring the most influential but controversial leader, understanding Meles means understanding the political economy of Ethiopia, at least in the past quarter of a century since 1991.
Indeed, to make a proper inference on Meles Zenawi requires to go beyond conventional biographic sketches. To draw inferences out of the life and works of Meles, it takes to be investigative. Perhaps, the trademarks of Meles from both sides of narratives about him ascribes to his grow-ups as a school boy. The backdrop of his personality is also lies in his years of armed and politcal struggle, which accounts almost all his youthhood and adulthood. A particular imoprtance in this regard is Hegelian philosophy and its Marxist-Leninist extensions of the exploiter-exploited dictum and the concept of Material determinism.

Meles as a School Boy

The personal memories of those who share same playfields and classrooms with him as boyhood attests that the foundation of the personality of the man as a politician and statesman were deep rooted. For his fellows at play yards, it was an adventurous boy, who used to try out what they didn’t dare, that they most remember about Meles. The extension of such personality is likely behind bolder policies of Meles, which often challenge the traditional or customary states of affairs as untouchable. The leader even came up and insisted on ideas largely dubbed as dangerous – the likes of ethnic federalism.
A curious student remembers Meles as a schoolboy, who used to spare much of his times in his career reading and studying. For a leader who is widely celebrated as wise, tireless and workaholic, those traits were worked out. Often described by those who were close to Meles as a man solid to his ideals, such personality is rather grown up with him. His mother once described Meles as a boy who was extremely resistant to be appear weak or outsmarted by others of his ages. His teachers also recalled Legesse Zenawi – the school name of Meles – same old as a politician and statesman, someone who always work on to find himself excelling (over his contenders) in debate sessions, a student exhaustive enough to defend his line of arguments. Perhaps the extension of that is his political personality, with which his political contenders always cry foul for his alleged political tackles.

Meles and the Hegelian Philosophy

A careful look into the thoughts of Meles virtually on every subject of political economy entails Hegelian philosophy is at the heart of his explanations and/or narratives.Many describe Meles’ policies as adventurous’ for intermingle of ideas or concept widely regarded as irreconcilable, Hegelian philosophy seems to have shaped how the man think. According to the Hegelian philosophy, a certain subject or concept is a synthesis of the two opposing sides – the thesis and ant-ithesis.
A leader often portrayed by his political rivals as a ‘reactionary’ or as his adherents call him ‘pragmatic’ for jumping on opposite corners of ideological lines, Meles always tangled, and knows how to do so, to breed ideas on the opposite corners to give up a new synthesis. His political and/or economic philosophy is the product of such a synthesis of concepts which appears largely opposing.
While conceptualizing democracy, Meles adheres to Revolutionary Democratic concept, which merges two concepts often portrayed repelling, ‘Revolution Versus Democracy’. In laying his vision for his country as a political leader is built upon a principle ‘Unity through Diversity, an emblem subjected to wide array of critics for magnifying ethnic nationalism at the cost of ‘Ethiopian identity’. For Meles, his ethnic based political line rather cement the cohesion of diverse groups of Ethiopians. The extension of such conceptions of Meles gave rise to most condemned constitutional articl, article 39 of the FDRE constitution, which stipulates the rights of Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (NNPs) to self-determination unto and including session. Meles always argued article 39 is a warranty for NNPs to live under one roof, which dries the roots of mistrust and hostility among the diverse ethnic groups averting the possibilities of political system of one ethnic group domination in the future Ethiopia.
Contradicting the conventional narratives on Developmental State Paradigm and Democratic Systems, which outlaws for any possible go-with of the two, Meles has come up with a new conception stating ‘Democracy could be maintained while Developmental state paradigm being the rule of the game’. Indeed, Hegelian philosophy explains the synthesis of Democratic Developmentalism (DD), a brand-new philosophical line of economic, political and bureaucratic system of governance which is credited to the late Meles Zenawi.

Meles a Socialist

A leader as ‘reactionary’ for some and a ‘pragmatic’ for others, Meles has always been portrayed man with double faces – as a socialist and capitalist. For his political opponents mostly from his party, TPLF (EPRDF), Meles was treated as subservient to imperialists upon his departure from Marxist-Leninist lines. The opposition political figures on the other hand accused Meles who trades in the name of democracy and capitalism, chractrizing him as a socialist and as a dictator. Actually, the revolutionary democratic leader borrowed socialist and a capitalist ideals in his theorizations and policies.
If it takes to mention one about the Socialist face of Meles Zenawi, it would be his adherence to the concept of material determinism, a methodological tool scientific socialism relies upon in its narratives on every subject of political economy.Material determinism entails that every aspect of life be it – history, socio-cultural, moral standards, political system, wellbeing and security – is predominantly shaped by material or economic forces. Indeed Meles embodies economic forces as fundemental, perhaps as his governance envisioned to build up of one economic community. Worth noticing is Meles was curious about where and when material determinism appeals. For instance, as opposed to Marxian narrative of history, dialectical materialism as it is doesn’t explain the Ethiopian history, the historic relationships among nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia. With Meles` narrative on Ethiopian history goes exploiter-exploited dictum on account of cultural or religious domination of one ethnic group – it is resounding that Meles having been realigned Marxian tool of conceptualizing history, dialectical materialism. The modification Meles has made was to redefine the form of relation in the exploiter- exploited narratives of history with the Amhara ethnic group at the corner of exploiter (dominating) for it has imposed its language (Amharic), culture and religion (Orthodox Christianity) over other Nations, Nationalities and Peoples. This historical conception is by far the foundation of the political philosophy of revolutionary Democratic Party and its government, for which Meles was the ideologue.

Meles and the Ethiopian Political Tradition

Though Meles disregard dialectical materialism to explain Ethiopian history, he doesn’t rules out it altogether. Unless for the installment of a political system that works for a just economic order which benefits all Ethiopians, such an exploiter-exploited sort of relationships is inevitable. Realizing such a political system which targets to end elitism ,is the backdrop of ideals of revolutionary democracy, which in the mean time have graduated to take the pillar of ‘Democratic Developmentalism’. Meles waging war against elitism,his revolutionary Democratic Party sets to empower the ‘mass’ – the rural peasants and urban proletariats – with civil, political and economic rights, it is inevitable for some sections of the society to lose in the process. Such explains the friends-foe dictum to have been taken for granted to model on Meles and his leadership.
More specifically,such narratives behind the dominant critic over EPRDF for an alleged ‘deliberate’ disempowerment of certain sections of society – mainly the urban intellegensia, depriving their settlements – selected cities and towns defined to be their powerhouses and their livelihoods. Meles and his party, the EPRDF always deny those allegation justifying their moves to fix the economic imbalances skewed in favor of urbanites and urban sectors, alienating the rural peasantry, as a results of the ‘ill policies’ of past regimes. A reflection of that is the two contrasting views on revolutionary democratic leadership in rural and urban Ethiopia, with the rural peasantry in love and the urban intellegensia in loath with EPRDF. Another reminder on that is popular impressions on Meles, which is all dual and polarized, as a figure you love him or you hate him with a passion, you admire him or loath him with a passion, you agree or disagree with him with a passion.
Worth important of all is that those who love or loath Meles seems to have little credentials in their labeling. With the prevailing political system largely featured by elitism, they are few groups either in support or opposition who have all the means to twist and turn politics, with the larger populace kept passive.As the political history of Ethiopia recount, political showdowns among the elites with their pull and push for the hegemony of power, have been taking the larger Ethiopian populace up and down. In the face where Philosophy, logic and/or principles to have been little to conduct on the two sides of the political game, what would give a relief for the people of Ethiopia is nothing but a strong man or political group able to deal the hostile and rocky political landscape in his(its) own way and appear up front to dictate.
Perhaps, such a value judgment may be unjustified by standard political theories and/or norms as the Ethiopian political system does so. Political monopoly featuring the Ethiopian political system, with the political tradition full of hatred, hostilities and play-offs, it is unfortunate that that such is how political stability would be achieved. Indeed, a fairer reflection on Meles Zenawi and his governance needs to be cognizant of this fact.